Former ALIVE president and youth representative Ambrose Williams is continuing to play a part in resisting the construction of Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline. The pipelines, recently approved by a federal review panel, would cross the traditional territories of Aboriginal peoples and broach pristine forests and waters on its path from Alberta’s oilsands to Kitimat, BC.

A recent report from BC’s Representative for Children and Youth Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond has exposed spectacular misspending and inaction by the BC government and the Ministry of Children and Families around the issue of improving services for Aboriginal youth in care. The report, When Talk Trumped Service: A Decade of Lost Opportunity for Aboriginal Children and Youth in BC, was presented to the BC Legislature on November 6th, 2013 and is available to read here (summary reports available from the Tyee and The Globe and Mail).

ALIVE has been pleased to be a part of the conversation surrounding the findings and recommendations of the report, and believes in the necessity of a new, integrated service model to improve the lives of Aboriginal children in care. Read about it in The Tyee, The Vancouver Sun, watch the report and the follow-up report on Global News, or listen to the conversation on CKNW (interview starts at 18 minute mark).

On this August 15 we are organizing an evening meeting to consult with artists, residents and others who want to assist in building the Salish Sea Village initiative. We will continue to keep all posted. We welcome all voices in this project, if you’re interested in getting involved in this or any project please contact us by email at info@alivesociety.ca.

Many thanks go to City of Vancouver, Inner City Economic Strategy, the DTES LAPP and others for their support.

read more about the Salish Sea Village initiative in the Globe and Mail.

On Thursday July 11th at 10:00 AM in Pigeon Park, over 15 residents associations, community economic development non-profits, family and cultural service organizations, aboriginal organizations and various other non-profits from the DTES stood in solidarity to respond to the vandalism, intimidation, harassment and targeted pickets that have taken place lately. This is the statement that we have jointly released.

ALIVE’s Executive Director, Scott Clark, spoke at the public meeting on Feb. 4th in favour of pooling community centre revenues and services. It ended with the city’s park commissioners voting to go ahead with implementing the new funding model which the park board states will create equity between have and have-not community centres. The proposal was met with much opposition.